This latest version of 3Com's Fast EtherLink XL network interface card offers several new software and hardware developments. Chief among these are the Parallel Tasking II technology and the DynamicAccess software, both of which bring greater performance and intelligence to the NIC.3Com's patented Parallel Tasking technology (which came with previous models of the Fast EtherLink XL) revolutionized NIC performance by accelerating the speed at which packets are transferred from the network wire to the NIC. Parallel Tasking II technology, designed specifically for PCI, takes 3Com's NIC performance to the next level by improving the speed that data is passed from the NIC to the host PC.